AUSMA ZEHANAT KHAN
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Secrets Across the Pond

2/1/2018

 
Picture
The Language of Secrets is due to be published in the UK very soon, and I thought I'd share the amazing job No Exit Press/Oldcastle Books does with the proofs for this series. Every time I see their brilliant design team at work, I'm taken aback that it's actually the same book that was published here in 2016. I love how the same work can inspire such different approaches. I also felt a little chill as though I was the one under INSET surveillance.  That's how you know it's great work.

Secrets as a book is very much a tribute to my undergrad years when I was more focused on reading and writing poetry--the ability of poetry to communicate our fears and desires is one of the underlying themes of the book. Much of the poetry in Secrets, I discovered in the stacks of the University of Toronto's Robarts Library, sitting cross-legged on the floor, inhaling clouds of dust as I discovered names like Adonis, Mahmoud Darwish, and Nazik al-Malaika for the first time. 

There's also a little nod to past history when I was an occasional contributor to my university's newspaper and contributed poems like 'Haifa Dream', and a passionate but uninformed op-ed on the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan. Perhaps the thing that is dearest to me in the book is a scene where Esa is having a personal epiphany about his identity as a Muslim detective in and of the West. 

He thinks of this line: 
These Lebanese children are wreaths on bits of firebomb debris.

This is the second line of a poem I wrote for a creative writing class in undergrad called 'Sestina of Lebanon'. We were asked to experiment with the form, which I got completely wrong, but the poem remains one of my favourites, opening with this pair of lines:

Crimson coffee is the morning cup
These Lebanese children are wreaths on bits of firebomb debris.

Politics, poetry and secrets. These are the keys to this book.

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    Ausma Zehanat Khan

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  • Home
  • ABOUT
  • Books
    • FANTASY >
      • The Bladebone >
        • The Bladebone (UK)
      • The Blue Eye >
        • The Blue Eye (UK)
      • The Black Khan >
        • The Black Khan (UK)
      • The Bloodprint >
        • The Bloodprint (UK)
    • MYSTERY >
      • A Deadly Divide >
        • A Deadly Divide UK Edition
        • A Deadly Divide Blog Tour
      • A Dangerous Crossing
      • Among the Ruins >
        • Among the Ruins UK
      • A Death in Sarajevo
      • The Language of Secrets >
        • The Language of Secrets (UK)
      • The Unquiet Dead >
        • The Unquiet Dead (UK)
    • MIDDLE GRADE
  • Photo Gallery
    • Author's Gallery
    • Reader Photos
  • EVENTS
    • Events >
      • Past Events
  • Other Writing
    • Profiles
    • Interviews
    • Essays
    • The Ravenscroft Blog
  • MEDIA
  • Contact